5 Take On The World, Inherited Turn 250AD
Knights moved so they won't be in Edrine's borders in the event of a culture flip. Trebuchet similarly sent to Istanbul. We need as much cash as possible, so Iznik swaps to bank.
Bursa doesn't need any more irrigation, so slave interrupted. Indeed, existing irrigation needs to be changed to mines at size 12.
Sheesh...I didn't know India and Russia were already industrial, and knew nationalism! (in 250AD
). Thank goodness for the ongoing wars, what would the tech pace be like without them?
We're allied against the Vikings for another 18 turns with Babylon, which is okay but not brilliant...ideally we want the Vikings to stay alive but at war with various civs, so we can pay on credit to civs they are fighting. We have various other deals, the biggest of which (Iroquois) will end soon. Another excellent advantage of all these wars is that many civs might be gassed by the time our sipahi roll around...
Russia and Babylon have spare saltpeter, so we should be okay when we come to need that. The gameplan therefore appears very straightforward. Get to military tradition, get some saltpeter, train lots of sipahi and unleash hell
.
IT: refuse MPP with India.
Istanbul bank ---------> colosseum
Turn 1, 260AD: sell wm around for change (did this every turn). On the off chance that the AIs continue to ignore it, I set a scientist on economics.
Turn 2, 270AD: zzz
IT: refuse MPP with Russia.
Edrine bank ----------> courthouse (so we can get 20spt).
Turn 3, 280AD: We're up to 66gpt with the Iroquois deal ending in another 3 turns. Let's hope the Vikings continue to survive a few turns longer...
IT: blast! Babylon and Vikings make peace. We're out of the alliance now but Babylon was our most likely 2fer partner.
Turn 4, 290AD: 71gpt now, still only doubtful for metallurgy from the gracious Iroquois.
IT: Greece demands 36g....I curse Alex heartily but give it to him, his time will come.
Turn 5, 300AD: I notice a couple of razed city-sites to the southeast. Neither of the sites available are particularly good so I can see no reason to go for them over Izmit. Besides, by the time we got a settler over they'd likely be taken anyway.
Turn 6, 310AD: finally we can trade!
We can make peace with the Vikings but they have only one city so instead...
Metallurgy + alliance against the Vikings from Iroquois for 104gpt!! Now you may ask why the alliance when the Iroquois are already at war with the Vikings? Well, it's a similar tactic to the one I used in AG1 with excellent success...as soon as the Vikings are eliminated (or they make peace) we get out of the payment with no rep hit
. It's devious but clever...the raw deal cost 99gpt, so, in effect, we're paying an extra 5gpt to tie into an alliance with the chance of the deal ending early...well worth it, since even if the deal were to end 1 turn early we make a profit! And if the Vikings can be eliminated within 5 turns (for example), we'll have saved 15 x 104gpt!!!
There is only one followup trade available and I take it...Navigation from Babylon for Metallurgy, wm + 179g.
We're one tech away from Sipahi...and note, Greece also lacks military tradition
.
IT: India and Babylon sign mpp.
Istanbul colosseum ----------> not sure. It does 27spt maxed out at size 12, which is great for sipahi but not much else. Set on longbow for now and changed to 21spt/4fpt, to allow the food box to fill for possible worker peel.
Russia starts Newton's.
Turn 7, 320AD: zzz
IT: Edrine courthouse (now at 20spt
) ---------> university
Turn 8, 330AD: Iroquois are now also industrial.
I decide to go ahead and buy saltpeter, to train higher quality troops...we have very little gold and training low quality units will simply be a burden on our economy... it costs 25gpt from Babylon. If we get military tradition soonish this will also help, as respurces cost more if there are more possible units to train. Istanbul changed to musket.
IT: out of the blue a berserker attacks Izmit from a galley
Our knight is redlined but manages to hold it off. Phew.
Turn 9, 340AD: zzz
IT: woohoo!!!!
That is even better than elimination. Our alliance ends and we get our cash back. Stupid Iroquois...I can't believe the Vikings could offer them anything to compensate for the 17 x 104gpt they lose from us. What a bonus for us though...
Istanbul musket ----------> musket
Izmit market ----------> harbour
Turn 10, 350AD: we now have options but I will leave the trades for the next player so the team can discuss first. We have 448g + 106gpt. Bursa (high commerce) has a bank complete next turn, which should be worth an additional 10-12gpt. There are also several deals that end in 4-8 turns which will free up more cash.
Vikings are down to one city and currently we are the only civ at war with them, so no-one else will accept gpt for techs. Essentially I think these are the main options:
a) Make peace with the Vikings, picking up printing press for navigation.
b) Maybe in conjunction with (a), coast along and build up our bank balance so we can buy military tradition outright later. We could maybe even train some horses for upgrade, and hold on buying military tradition until just after we have renewed saltpeter (18 turns left until renewal), when we might even have a significant amount left over for upgrades.
c) Drag civ(s) back into war against the Vikings (eg Iroquois would only cost 17gpt). We could then try to buy military tradition for gpt from the civ at war against the Vikings, though I don't think we've got quite enough cash just yet. The bonus would be already having saltpeter, so we could start training sipahi immediately. Note also that Greece still lacks military tradition, so there would be a potential 2fer, though once again I doubt we could fulfil it with our rep broken, and we don't wnat any perturn deals with Greece anyway...Unfortunately we couldn't repeat the earlier trick of having the alliance and the purchase in the same deal, since we need a civ to be at war with the Vikings before they will consider accepting gpt from us.
Those are some thoughts for the team to consider. What other options do we have?
I'll finish by repeating what gozpel said: we ain't out of this yet! We're close to sipahi and only a couple of AI know nationalism. Not only that, most have been fighting for 100 turns+ and should be weakened from that. there's life in this dog yet!
The Save
.
The attack has started and we are in our GA 
